Roomba: A gadget that's worth it!

I'll admit it, my wife and I have a Roomba and we love it. We got it as a wedding present from my brothers. Normally, I would never go out and spend $300 on a gimmicky gadget like the Roomba, but now that we have one we will never go back. This thing is awesome! It can be scheduled to run by itself while we are away at work. It sucks up pretty much anything a normal vacuum would including cat hair which is a big problem in our house. There is nothing like coming home from work to a vacuumed house.

That's not to say that its perfect. Occasionally our Roomba fails to detect the stairs and makes a suicide dive. Nonetheless, this is one tough cookie, once you put him back together again he is ready to go. One time he did stop working so we sent him back. iRobot had great customer service and sent us a whole new Roomba in no time. The Roomba also occasionally misses corners due to his round shape.

For all his imperfections the Roomba still does an awesome job cleaning our house and I would recommend the product to anyone. Has anyone tried the Scooba or the Looj? Leave a comment to let me know if they are just as good as the Roomba. Meanwhile, I'll continue to wait for the Lawnba.

Multiple Appliance Discounts: Not Necessarily a Good Deal!

Well my wife and I went to the Home Depot today to buy some appliances for our kitchen remodel project. Besides melting my credit card, I learned that there are some discounts that just aren't worth getting. For instance, GE was offering up to $300 off on the purchase of multiple appliances. We wanted a GE dishwasher, but to get the discount we had to buy a GE range or a refrigerator. Unfortunately, my wife already had her heart set on a Jenn Air range due to a few of its features. That left a refrigerator. However, the price difference between the GE and the LG we had looked at before coming to the store for the price and features we wanted was nearly $1000. Needless to say, we actually saved more money by mixing and matching then falling for the trap of upgrading to an expensive GE with more features than we wanted or needed.